“Taking big steps towards full mobility”

Exoskeleton improvements

Gifting full mobility to people with a spinal cord injury; that is the goal of Project March. The TU Delft student team's exoskeleton enables paraplegics to walk again. It's like a dream come true for many. Together with the team, we have optimised the knee joint of the exoskeleton for a better devision of forces.

We phoned Code to ask for last minute help on our FE analyses. They saw the high social impact of our project and stepped in immediately, for which we are very glad. Code’s expertise really made the difference in reaching our goals.

Rafael Argiro, Chief Engineer at Project March

THE CHALLENGE

In the hip and knee joints of the MARCH II exoskeleton, high precision and great forces come together. One of the requirements for the joint design was that the distance between the magnetic encoder ring and the sensor should not exceed the boundaries of 0.1 mm and 0.3 mm. The sensor reads out the angle of the joint, so when big forces are acting on the joint, only minimal deformations can be allowed.

OUR SOLUTION

To ensure that high forces do not deform the knee joints too much, the team performed Finite Element Analyses, with the support of Code Product Solutions. Together, we have made FEA-based adjustments, which have led to design improvements and the final joint design of the exoskeleton.

OUR RESULT

a much better division of forces

accomplish a broader, flat end stop

optimisation of the final use

WHAT WE DID

DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS
Adjusting the housing to make the joint stiffer, which prevents deformations. This enables measuring the angle of the joint in all circumstances.

MECHANICAL END STOP
This safety system makes sure the knee will never be able to rotate more than the knee of the pilot.

INQUIRIES?

Want to talk about an optimisation project?

CONTACT PAUL HABETS

Could your product use a review to optimise its design? We would love to hear your ideas. Let's talk about it to find the right solution.